Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE INTRUDERS, by JAMES RORTY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE INTRUDERS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: High on the sierra, while the snow-wind blew
Last Line: But what it said we neither of us knew.
Subject(s): Nature


High on the Sierra, while the snow-wind blew,
The storm-tree spoke: it asked me if I knew
Precisely who I was, exactly why
I trudged this breathless trail up to the sky;
In fact, by just what title I stood there
Drinking deep flagons of the mountain air.

I have my pride; I am not one to be
Confounded by the candor of a tree.
The rudenesses of junipers and such
Have lost their power to irritate me much.
"Granted," I said. "You're hardy, brave, and bold,
And, so they say, incontinently old;
In fact, of all the talking trees I know,
The juniper's most wisely learned to grow.
Your roots go deep to feed on granite -- well,
Some folk ask little more in heaven or hell.
Why do I seek this sky? Perhaps for blue
To use in painting canvases of you;
And when, in time, the falling mountain flicks
From off this crumbling rock your whitened sticks,
My hand will keep, for sight of human kind,
Those valiant, gaunt limbs woven with the wind.
You'll hang within a frame, immortally
Enduring winds that never set you free."
I paused expectantly; the audience stirred, --
Squirrel and chipmunk and a junco bird, --
When from the air an iron humming woke
The silence of the peaks; a new voice broke
Upon our high debate: the air-mail passed,
Drumming its steady way along a vast,
Unbending highway in the windy blue;
But what it said we neither of us knew.





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